Costa Rica is part of a great international game

Published Monday, March 16, 2020

Costa Rica is part of a great international game

By James Brodell

As Costa Rica struggles to address the impact of the coronavirus, national leaders and the public might be tempted to ignore longer trends.

Even before the virus became top news, the U.S.-Chinese trade war was having an indirect impact on the country.

Meanwhile, Costa Rican officials, intent on trade with the Asian giant, have not pointed out clearly to the public the way in which Costa Rica is a key figure in a massive international game.

China has openly predicted that it will become the world superpower in the next 100 years, eclipsing the United States.

A new publication uses two board games to contrast the approaches of the U.S. and China. The western game of chess has the strategic goal of capturing the opposing king. The Chinese came of go, however, seeks to avoid direct conflict and to encircle the opponent bit by bit.

That was an analogy by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in the new publication “El sueño chino” that came out in February.

The history of Costa Rica's relationship with the People's Republic is very similar to that of other Latin American countries. While Costa Rica received the gift of a $100 million soccer stadium from China, other countries have received similar. Those with British influence received stadiums for cricket.

Former vice president Kevin Casas-Zamora outlined in 2009 in a Brookings Institute summary the pragmatic decision by president Oscar Arias-Sanchez to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to mainland China two years earlier. He called it the single most important foreign policy decision made by the country in the past 20 years.

Trade with China already exceeded that of Taiwan, and the potential was much more. Casas said Costa Rican politicians were discussing recognizing China for perhaps 10 years before Arias acted.

The stadium and other financial incentives resulted from disavowing Taiwan. Then there was the free trade agreement that went into force Aug. 1, 2011. Instead of the divisive political disruption that marked negotiations for a free-trade agreement with the United States, the Chinese one was hardly noticed.

A U.S. academic, George K. Danny, a professor of sociology at the University of North Georgia, characterized China's approach in a 2017 paper in the Journal of Business and Economic Policy:

“China is seemingly non-judgmental and does not seek to impose their societal values on, or spread their national ideology to the countries with which they engage. The Chinese seemingly show no concerns for democracy and human rights violations and the corruption indices of the countries with which they engage. Instead, China portrays their relations as one of equals and partners in development. China does not seek to determine what the developmental priorities of these countries should be but instead helps to promote the attainment of these. The relations between China and the countries in the region are ostensibly based on respect for each other’s sovereignty. China has had no history of colonizing and/or invading countries in the region, overthrowing their elected governments and imposing economic sanctions. This has made China’s overtures more readily acceptable to regional governments.”

He noted that good relations with Beijing requires a country to adhere to the one-China policy and turn its back on Taiwan. China considers Taiwan breakaway region.

Dann also notes that Washington has been preoccupied with wars in the Middle East and has reduced both resources and attention to Latin America. To that also can be added the U.S. war on drugs. While China provided a soccer stadium, the U.S. is in the process of providing $35 million in military-style equipment, including patrol boats and aircraft, to Costa Rica, an ally in the war on drugs.

Many Costa Ricans and expats in the Central Valley who remember construction of the National Stadium also remember seeing the many Chinese workers imported to do the job. There were an estimated 600 engineers and construction workers who did not mix with the population and generally worked longer hours than Costa Rica's laws provide.

In the latest project involving China, some work is being subcontracted to Costa Rican workers. China Harbor Engineering Co. is in charge of widening Route 32, the key highway from Limón Centro to Río Frio near Guapiles. The nearly $500 million job is being financed by a low-interest $395 million loan from a Chinese bank. The 107-kilometer job is supposed to be done next year, although progress has been slowed because of delays in right-of-way expropriations

Dann said that Chinese labor is used at other projects in Latin American and the Caribbean that the People's Republic finances.

He also said that there is a trend toward Chinese immigration to Latin American and Caribbean countries. “New Chinese businesses are increasingly visible in the commercial sectors of regional countries and Chinese imports are flooding the markets in many of these countries,” he said in his paper.

Central Valley residents have seen the growth of a Chinatown in the center of the central canton of San José. Chinese businesses, including supermarkets, have proliferated.

The Costa Rican promotional agency known as PROCOMER would like to see more food sales to China. But it also noted in September that in 2018 Costa Rica exported $194 million to China, but it imported $2.3 billion.

The Economic Commission for Latin America, a United Nation agency, does not seem concerned with rising Chinese influence, The priority there is a redistribution of wealth in Latin America with higher taxes to end financial inequality.

Although Dann sees China's efforts in Latin America as altruistic, there is growing concern in the United States that Beijing is using Costa Rica as another board piece in its international game of go.

That concern has grown as a result of the coronavirus because officials in Washington have realized that many of the supplies needed to fight the virus, such as pharmaceuticals and masks, are no longer made in the United States. They come from China, and the fear is that China may someday cut off these and other crucial equipment.

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Editor's note: Mr. Brodell, founder and long-time editor of A.M. Costa Rica, can be reached at: jay@amcostarica.com